The U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) recently launched the $350,000 Solving for Safety: Visualization Challenge competition to analyze risk on the surface transportation system through advanced data analytics.
Participants should apply technological innovations and advanced analytics to improve road safety dramatically, Derek Kan, USDOT undersecretary for policy, said. Participates should create data visualizations that illuminate critical insights about solving the highway safety problem, USDOT said.
“Recent innovations in data analytics and visualization tools give us the potential to understand risk at the system level, and to develop tools and discover insights that will lead to new, life-saving strategies that address injuries and fatalities on our roadways,” Kan said.
USDOT asks data experts to develop tools that can be used to reduce risk by using the department’s various datasets. The data is typically made available annually as it is stored and analyzed separately.
The data includes factors that influence risks such as road conditions, time of day and weather.
The competition is open to local governments nationwide as well as data scientists, safety experts, academia, and technologists.
Companies and organizations can participate in the challenge as innovation agents that provide guidance, real-world knowledge, and recognition of the issue to non-transportation safety populations.